Black Friday - Merchants Dream or Nightmare

Black Friday - The illustrious holiday that either makes or breaks your year and or sanity. With more and more shopping heading out late at night or during the incredibly early hours of the morning, black friday will be one busy day. According to Business Insider Magazine, over 12.3 Billion was spent on brick and mortar stores alone. 12.3 billion is an astronomical number, but will this trend continue? Over the last decade we've seen sales skyrocket during Thanksgiving weekend, but at what cost?

In the early stages of Black friday, stores would open up at 6am, 7am or if they were really crazy 5am. Now if a store doesn't open up on Thanksgiving, it's a rarity. This year many stores will be opening up a 5pm on Thanksgiving.

When does Black Friday become not worth the hassle for merchants? Should you open your business on Black Friday? Well a lot depends on your needs and expectations are.

Here are 3 tips on if Black Friday is right for you and how to succeed:

1. Location, Location, Location.

Location is one of the biggest factors for any company. Majority of people on black friday will go to malls or large shopping centers. If your business is remote or hard to access, it's probably not worth your time to do anything extra special. If your business is located in a mall or near it, it'd probably worth the extra hours.

2. Do you have an advertising budget?

If you decide to open up at 4am and no one knows, is it worth it? Absolutely not! Whether advertising via social media, local newspaper, or a viral campaign, people need to know about your great deals. One of the best and cheapest way is to host a contest with your social media fans. This will create a buzz among them and give you free advertising to reach new customers.

3. Online is just fine

One way to ensure that you won't waste your time or money is by having online only exclusive deals. Having an extra 30% off coupon emailed to your customers just might be the perfect solution to your black friday needs.

To some black friday is a yearly favorite and others a nightmare. Opening up earlier, being open all night long, dealing with crank and sleep deprived customers is also the most ideal situation. But in return, your sales might increase exponentially. Black friday is one of the most intriguing shopping days of the year. 2014 is expected to be the largest Thanksgiving weekend sales in history. So the question is, is black friday your dream fantasy or your business nightmare?